Michel Richard Delalande
Encyclopedia
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
who was in the service of King Louis XIV. He was one of the most important composers of grand motets. He also wrote orchestral suites known as "Simphonies pour les Soupers du Roy" and ballets. His works foreshadowed the cantatas of JS Bach and the Water Music
Water Music (Handel)
The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered on 17 July 1717 after King George I had requested a concert on the River Thames...
and oratorios of Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
.
Born in Paris, he was a contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
and François Couperin
François Couperin
François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
. Delalande taught music to the daughters of Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, and was director of the French chapel royal from 1714 until his death at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
in 1726.
Delalande was arguably the greatest composer of French grands motets
Grands motets
The grand motet was a genre of motet cultivated at the height of the French baroque, although the term dates from later French usage...
, a type of sacred work that was more pleasing to Louis XIV because of its pomp and grandeur, written for soloists, choir and comparatively large orchestra. According to tradition, Louis XIV organized a contest between composers, giving them the same sacred text and a time to compose the musical setting. He alone was the judge. Delalande was one of four winners assigned to compose sacred music for each quarter of the year (the other composers being Coupillet, Collasse
Pascal Collasse
Pascal Collasse was a French composer of the Baroque era. Born in Rheims, Collasse became a disciple of Jean-Baptiste Lully during the latter's domination of the French operatic stage...
and Minoret
Guillaume Minoret
Guillaume Minoret was a French baroque composer.He was of the generation of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, but unlike him only a small part of his œuvre survives...
). Delalande's was the most important quarter of the year because of the Christmas holiday. Later he had full responsibility for the church music for the complete year.
Delalande left many versions of his works. His earlier versions show adherence to French Baroque style, but the later revisions incorporate more Italian melismatic lines and greater attention to polyphonic counterpoint.
Also, at least four collections of his works exist, each displaying different looks at composer's work as viewed by the people who assembled each collection.
Scholarship of Delalande's work was for many years hindered because of inconsistencies in the spelling of his last name: de Lalande, Lalande, la Lande, de la Lande, and others. The family wrote the name as 'Delalande'. Finally, in 2006 the definitive "Thematic Catalogue of the Works of Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726)" by noted British musicologist Lionel Sawkins came out which runs to 752 pages containing over 3,000 music examples details of performing requirements and of all source materials, as well as with comprehensive indexes and thematic locators.
Works
Vocal- grands motetsGrands motetsThe grand motet was a genre of motet cultivated at the height of the French baroque, although the term dates from later French usage...
- Latin settings of psalms including Lalande's Te DeumTe DeumThe Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
(1684). - petits motets - shorter Latin settings for a few vocal and instrumental soloists and continuo, including élévationElevationThe elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....
s on a eucharistic text sung at the elevation of the communion wafers.
Instrumental
Lalande was an expert organist and harpsichordist, and yet has left not a single note of keyboard music.
- ritournellesRitornelloA ritornello is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. The first or final movement of a solo concerto or aria may be in "ritornello form", in which the ritornello is the opening theme, always played by tutti, which returns in whole or in part and in different keys throughout...
- twelve substantial ritournelles for François Fossard and André Danican Philidor's book of Airs italiens (1695). For example Lalande supplies a 31-bar-long ritournelle for two violins and continuo composed before ‘Giurai di non amar’ an aria from Domenico FreschiDomenico FreschiGiovanni Domenico Freschi was an Italian composer and Roman Catholic priest. From the age of 22 until his death he worked as a church musician and composer in Vincenza...
's Olimpia vendicata of 1681.